Writing a memoir is brutal. On you. Because a good memoir should be about some difficult challenge or threat you faced and how you overcame it. It could be about a failed marriage. Going to jail and trying to enter back into society. Drug addiction. Prostitution. Death at your door. Bankruptcy. Losing a child. Mental illness. Contemplating suicide. And, in the end, it’s not really about you. It’s about your reader. Prompting them to relate to your plight, your dilemma, your agony, your fear…and your success at finally achieving happiness, security and maybe even forgiveness of yourself.
To do this, you have to dig deep, reveal your scars, your wounds that may not have completely healed. Because your reader is probably in the same place that you were. Trying to climb out of the same pit. But you got out. How? Does this mean they can, too? You want to take them from a very dark place to one of sunshine, flowers and goodness.
A memoir is not an autobiography. It is not a story about your whole life. It is a story about a single part of your life. And the reader wants to get something out of your story that will help him or her. They really don’t care about you. But they do care about learning from you. Written in the first-person, it’s taking the reader to a low point and then showing how it’s possible to climb back up. So make it exciting. Tease the reader. Leave them hanging at chapter ends so they go on to the next chapter. Do not reveal everything at once but let the story unfold. You don’t have to be consecutive in how everything happened to you. You can even start at the end. But make it thrilling and filled with tension. Let the reader learn from you, but don’t preach. Don’t rant and rave. Don’t complain. And don’t be vengeful against anyone…except yourself.
Don’t mention real names. Even if you have permission. Change the names, but also change personal descriptions, places and even circumstances. There are many, many cases where an author changed a name but everyone knew who they were talking about anyway. If this is proven in court, you will have a new tragedy to write about.
Now, not all memoirs have to be about horrible life circumstances. Yes, memoirs can be about everyday life. You can do that, of course. But, ask yourself, be brutal, will that bore people? People only want to buy your memoir and spend time reading it to get something out of it. Not to waste their money or their time. There are lots of memoirs written by celebrities, politicians and athletes, for example, that have been big hits. But are you a celebrity? This is where you have to be brutal again. Does anyone really want to hear your story? Are you writing it for you, or for your readers? Are you writing it just to make yourself feel better, or do you sincerely want to help someone else get through what you’ve been through.
If you remember that it’s really about what the reader gets out of the story, not so much what you got out of the challenge, then your memoir has the potential to be one of the best, most meaningful, most memorable books written.